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Membership of the Marches Meadow Group

Who can join?

Membership is open to anyone who has an interest in conserving, enhancing or learning more about species rich hay meadows. Although the group focuses on the area covered by the Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Country Landscape Partnership Scheme a number of our members live outside the area and we welcome members from other parts of Shropshire and Powys. Membership is also open to organisations and companies who own or manage land and meadows they may wish to enhance. Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Natural England are associate members of the group.

Beneﬁts of membership

• Advice on the management of your meadow(s) or other grassland to increase plant diversity. • Access to the small scale hay making machinery owned by the group and the services of the group’s contractor. (Please note at present this service is only available for members’ land situated within the Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Country Landscape Partnership Scheme). • A walk over survey of your meadow(s)/grassland by the group’s botanists who will provide you with a list of all the identiﬁed species. • Opportunity for your meadow(s) to be naturally enhanced through the application of locally sourced green hay or collected seed. • Advice on selling hay and for those with species rich hay the potential to participate through the group in selling green hay for regional conservation/restoration projects. • Visits to species rich meadows during the summer. • Opportunities to participate in workshops and training organised by the group, e.g. scything workshops, meadow management workshop, plant identiﬁcation training. • Opportunities to meet other MMG members who are meadow managers or owners. • Annual talk given by a guest speaker. A small charge is made for non members.

Cost of membership

Annual membership subscription is currently £15. Subscriptions are due after the AGM. New members who join on or after 1st January will not have to renew their subscription until the second AGM after joining.

Current membership

The group currently has 40 members (March 2018). Membership is expected to increase as the group becomes better known and improvements can be seen in local ﬁelds.

One of the aims of the MMG is to establish a database of meadows in the Stiperstones and Corndon Hill area. We therefore ask all our members to complete a short questionnaire on the number and size of meadows they manage, the topography, access issues, their current usage (are they used for grazing animals, are they cut for hay etc?) as well as information about the diversity of plant species. This information then allows us to plan our programme of support to members during the hay making season. The main activities are hay making and transferring green hay from donor sites to new receptor sites (see the Green Hay page on this website for more information) which require careful planning and management in what can often be a fairly tight timescale! We also offer meadow surveys to members (see the page on Meadow Surveys) and these responses help us plan our programme accordingly.

A copy of the Audit Questionnaire is available by clicking on this link. You may find this useful if you are considering becoming a member of the group or you are an existing member who needs to update their original audit return.